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tv   Caught on Camera  MSNBC  December 24, 2012 5:00pm-6:00pm PST

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>> i am so thrilled with the results that came out today, the life sentence. i couldn't be happier. from the absurd -- >> i'm going to pull my junk out and take a leak. >> to the embarrassing. >> it really happened.
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i have all the wedding footage. do you want to see it? >> to the just plain shocking. >> this was one of the most disturbing viral videos i've ever seen. >> these viral videos capture our attention. >> it's a pretty horrifying, visceral thing when you see that. >> one way or another. >> the tires should not be able to go up just by nudging each other. >> i can't believe it. that's so incredible. >> almost instantly we want to forward them along. >> things like that people want to share with other people. >> where's its right wing? >> but how can you know if they're real? >> it looks like it could be real. which is why i think it's not real. >> i mazing! >> "caught on camera, viral
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videos: do you believe". >> hello, i'm contessa brewer. more than 24 hours of video are uploaded to the site every minute. and that's just one of the many sites where you can view videos these days. that's a lot of funny, cute, or disturbing moments you can pass along to friends. but how do we know if we can believe what we're seeing? the clips have people wondering are they real or are they fake? imagine your wedding day has finally arrived after months if not years of planning. the sun is shining. i don't our hair and makeup are flawless. you're stairing into the eyes of the man you love and then -- >> oh, god! a wedding disaster. >> there is always the fear that this one little thing will ruin everything. >> that's what happened in this
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video. >> one little tumble turns it from perfect to a calamity. >> it has awesome shock value. >> if this was my wedding, my whole family would be like, that guy would be in the pool, maybe on the barbecue. i mean, i would -- it wouldn't be like, oh, is she okay? oh, charlie slipped. you know what i mean? it would be like, get the forks. we are killing charlie. >> this nuptial nightmare is first uploaded to youtube in october 2008. soon, it's appearing on news broadcasts and morning shows around the country. >> this is somebody's wedding day. we found it on the website. let's take a look. that's the best man. that's the best man. but you know what? i mean -- and it didn't look -- oh, oh. >> but was this a real moment caught on camera or something all together different? if you guessed real, you were wrong. >> i kind of thought it was fake. but i didn't want to think it was fake.
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i wanted to believe it was real. so i just told everyone it was real. i just sort of willed myself to believe it was real. so i would pass it on. people were like, that's fake. i was like, no, it's real. it's got to be real. >> independent filmmaker archie gibbs is the man behind this embarrassingly funny tumble. >> it's a part of actually a scripted feature film that i wrote. >> that's right. it's a promo for a movie. >> my producing partner and i thought it would be really cool if we could do a movie that we could actually market, have clips on the internet that people would think is real and then when they come see the movie, they would decide for themselves. >> inspired by the 1999 hit, "the blair witch project," they came up with the idea of putting together a film from so-called found footage. but this time, it would be a romantic comedy, not a horror film. and a wedding seemed like the perfect setting. >> sometimes when you go to a wedding, they will have disposable cameras that the
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bride and groom will hand out. at this wedding, they handed out flip cameras. >> in reality, the movie was shot over 12 days at a home in los angeles. as soon as production wrapped, archie uploaded a short clip to youtube. that moment millions would see. >> oh my god, oh my god! >> he thought it would be a good way of drumming up interest while he edited the movie. little did he know how quickly the clip would take off. >> about a week later, yahoo! had it on their homepage as wet wedding and it went bonkers. >> zoe, your top. >> oh, my god. >> every single major morning news program wanted the bride and the groom to come on to their show to talk. we couldn't do that. >> after all, the bride and groom were actors. >> it's dry cleaning. >> and sending them on to a national television program seemed a little too risky.
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and because the movie wasn't ready for audience, archie wasn't prepared to spill the beans just yet. >> we did not want to let the cat out of the bag, because part of the fun of the movie is, is it real, is it fake? >> so he decided to string the shows along. when asked if the clip was real, archie would just say -- >> it really happened. i have all of the wedding footage. do you want it see it? if they asked me point blank, was this shot for a movie? i would have said yes. but they did not ask the right questions. >> very smart people can be duped. not smart people can be duped easier. things like that, people want to believe because it's really funny. >> oh, god! >> we weren't set out to pull a hoax. it was always to have it -- something that was entertaining that people thought was funny and they just weren't sure if it was real or fake. >> fast forward one year, to october 2009. the clip has millions of views
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and the movie is now complete. archie's ready for more publicity, and lucky for him, a local morning show in l.a. wants to have the "bride and groom" on to talk about their mishap. this time it seems worth the risk. >> carissa wheeler, who plays the bride, and josh cobitt, who's the groom, went on in character. while the newscast was there. one of them actually says, i kind of believed it was real but now seeing you guys together, you totally make a great couple. >> well, i had my doubts too. but now that i see you, you guys are truly, truly in love. i feel bad for those news anchors digging themselves in into a hole without knowing they were digging themselves into a hole. >> we actually called them up and said we would love to come back on the show, and it wasn't real. you can chastise us or whatever you want. they declined to have us back on their show. >> you can take a joke so far. and then you can take it too far. they clearly went over the edge and fell over it into the pool of bad will, as it were.
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>> maybe not with the audience though. while the completed movie wasn't a hit, this dip was viewed over 100 million times online and on tv. real or fake, it was a viral success. >> oh, my god! oh, my god! oh my god, oh my god! >> another viral hit. this short clip uploaded in january 2011. yes, that appears to be a gorilla walking upright just like a man. all the other gorillas are sitting or on all fours, like you would expect. it seems suspicious. could this be a man in a gorilla suit? nope. this is as real as it gets. bam bam is a western lowland gorilla living at the port limnney wild animal park in kent, england, where he can
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sometimes be seen strutting across his enclosure on just two feet. keepers say this stance gives him a height advantage he can use to see over the wall when they come to feed him. and apparently, the ability to walk like a man runs in the family. bam bam's father displayed the same unusual behavior. so, he's just following in his father's footsteps. from a primate who can walk the walk, to a baby doing -- whatever this is. that can't possibly be a real baby. can it? >> you kind of hope that it's cg. >> you are going to send this to everyone you know who has a baby. >> amazing special effects or obscure child development practice, when we return to "caught on camera: viral videos, do you believe?" i'm done! "are you a cool mom?" i'm gonna find out.
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in late 2010, this jaw-dropping video of a woman moving and swinging what looks like a small baby starts to get the attention of online viewers. >> you see a video of this happening to a baby, you're going send this to everyone you know who has a baby, likes cute things and likes cute little babies and would be outraged by it. >> websites like gawker quickly start questioning if it's even real. >> this was one of the most disturbing viral videos i've seen. it's intense. it is intense. this can't be a real baby. right? >> i mean, the way that we bind them up and swaddle them and protect them and put them this car seats, you don't expect to see babies move this way. >> it's easier to say, it's fake. i'm sure the baby is not getting hurt, i don't need to worry about it. but whoa. >> i was hoping it was an editing trick like live baby, live baby, okay, cut. put the doll in hand, do whatever you want with that stupid doll because it is just a doll. >> is this a case of creative editing? no, it isn't.
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>> who comes up with this idea first? jumpy, jumpy. oh, you know, it's like, oh, hey the arm didn't come off. >> that would be russian leeanna fokina, a practitioner of something called dynamic gymnastics. she runs workshops in egypt. journalist nathan thornburgh has reported on this video for his blog and for "time" magazine where he is a contributing writer. >> she was definitely able to confirm that you know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that this was real, that child was real. and fortunately, that the child was still alive and seems to be healthy. >> thornburg scored an interview with fokina after seeing the video go viral. >> this was one of those videos that you don't just see in one place at one time. i think i got it forwarded to me from 15 people at once. >> the video is hard to watch. so we're only showing you carefully selected portions. thornburg describes it in its
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entirety. >> she starts by sort of rocking it back and forth. holding two hands. and then, before you know it, she's flipped the baby up and she starts to swing it, you know, like she is starting to swing it like she is starting to make pizza dough or something. then she lets go of one arm and she has just got the kid by one hand. a little bit of lariat action. 30 seconds into it, your jaw is just on floor. >> throughout, the 2-week-old baby girl seems to remain calm. >> that's why a lot of people are thinking, well this is not real. because no child could sit through that kind of thing without howling or something. >> far from harming the child, fokina and her followers say this practice of dynamic gymnastics, sometimes called baby yoga, actually aids in development. >> my russian friends said, yeah, they start walking more quickly and start talking and start reading at a younger age. >> but these claims are not supported by scientific evidence.
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>> there's been no big scientific study, what happens if you take ten babies and flip them and ten babies and you don't flip them. i think at the end of the day, it's a matter of faith. and there is a small group in russia that do this. it's a small minority but they have a lot of faith in it. >> the baby's father, sasha, certainly thinks that fokina, not the girl's mother, is on to something. >> sasha, the father, really believes in this. he has gone down to egypt before and spent time with her, and i think is a big part of their lifestyle. >> in fact, he still swings his daughter, who is shown here as a 2-year-old toddler. he says she is happy and healthy. while this video represents an extreme version of dynamic gymnastics, thornburg says this practice is at least partly in line with the russian approach to fitness and health. >> russians expect a certain amount of virility. they are the people who sit in
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hot, you know, saunas and beat themselves with sticks and then run out into the snow. >> i guess this is an example of different strokes for different folks, right? but still, i don't think it would be a good idea. >> you know that it's real. it's good to know that the baby was fine, that nothing happened, there was no injury. everything's cool. but it just seems so, like, violent and like, not healthy. i thought babies' necks were soft and that you needed to cradle them, not jerk them around. >> and maybe the extreme nature of the video is the reason many people thought this couldn't be real in the first place. and why some still don't believe it is. >> but there are still people who come on to our site and comment that they still think it's fake, even after the whole interview. and i think one of the reasons is because we just have no visual context for anyone surviving something like this.
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coming up, from babies who shouldn't be flying, to planes that should. >> where is his right wing? he just lost his wing. >> so aerodynamically, that should not fly. >> should not or could not? >> you want to discuss it with your friends. what do you think? is this fake? is this real? >> the answer when we return to "caught on camera: viral videos, do you believe?"
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an airplane flies higher and higher into the sky. and then -- >> where's his right wing? he's just lost his wing. >> as the one-winged plane falls through the air, you watch, horrified. somehow, the impossible happens.
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the plane lands with only one wing. >> it's one of those amazing awesome things that you see and you're like, i can't believe it. that's so incredible. >> this clip titled, the best air race pilot ever, hits the web in 2008 and quickly racks up the views. some people just want to see this remarkable feat. >> he just lost his wing. >> but others pass it along because they aren't sure it's real. >> when you're not sure whether something is real or not, you want to discuss it with your friends and you want to be like, what do you think? is this fake? is this real? >> there's a lot of sort of aerodynamic things that would have to happen that are against aerodynamic laws to make this work. >> i may, basic physics of flight. you have wings that hold you up. if those wings are not holding you up, the engine is not
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keeping you up, you're going down. >> still, the video is shaky, like a home movie. and the plane floats out of frame at times. this doesn't seem to be the work of a professional. and that wing definitely disappeared, right? so, which is it? real and really amazing? or fake? >> as soon as the wing flew off, i was like fake. >> i think in the end, we have given like, lots of hints that it can't be real. >> this viral hit is martin drager's brain child. >> we call it stealth campaigns. so that means that you fake something, that you try to convince people in a way that they discuss if something is real or not. >> the video is a subtle campaign for a small german clothing company called kill a thrill. you can make out the company name on the body of the plane. >> if you type in killa thrill on google, you have four results before the campaign.
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after the campaign, you have 15,000 results. i think they had even more than 100,000 visitors on the website. and the website had been totally unknown before. >> he got the results he was after. but how did drager make something fake look so real? >> that was the big problem, to get the knowledge, how to use such a video that it looks real. and that, in the end, the pilot steps out of the plane and everybody has to think, oh, my god, he actually landed this plane. >> to pull it off, drager, along with producer jan barons and post production consultant, michael vistom combined three different planes. first, a remote controlled model airplane. to make the wing of the remote control plane disappear, they painted it out, frame by frame, replacing it with the blue from the sky.
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the detailed 3-d aircraft was created with a computer and inserted into footage shot on location at a hamburg airfield. it's the 3-d version of the plane that tumbles to the earth and pulls up for a landing, just in time. >> i think the biggest challenge for the landing was it create a realistic looking plane, which we see before that, flying through the air in 3-d, and then making it land on the real airport. >> after the plane lands, it comes to a stop and the pilot pops out of the cockpit. that's where a real plane comes into play. >> we used the real plane, because we had to have all those dimensions. we have to have the position for the pilot where he comes out. so what happened was, we shooted it with the real plane. and afterwards, we put the 3-d machine right on to the real one. this picture, we can see the layers. the person actually opens the
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window and steps out. and that was what we thought would be necessary for the people to make it real for them. >> but after weeks of work, the team couldn't quite manage to make the landing look real enough. >> it looked a bit like, i don't know, a toy plane landing. when we saw we first thought, okay, we have to work on it. it has to be super realistic. >> oh, my god! >> but then we decided, no, let's leave it like this because it will open the discussion on the net and people will say, well, something is wrong. i don't know what, but it looks a bit weird. >> where is his right wing? >> all we wanted is to get people to debate about it. wanted to give them a story they can share or just a good thing, what you can -- yeah, discuss with friends. that's all we wanted. >> leaving the imperfect landing was a way of tipping the viewer
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off and jump-starting the conversation. >> there is a huge amount of internet culture where people are debating whether something is fake or not. and i think this video that plays perfectly into that. >> amazing! >> another one that had people talking, this video released in march 2011. standing in the middle of new york times square, this man says he can hack any video screen. >> you see that plug into the iphone? that's my video transmitter. now this is my video repeater. basically it takes any video signal coming out of the iphone and it boosts it and enhances it. i can take over any other video signal that i want that i put this close to. >> he then plays the video he just recorded first on small screens close to the ground. and then attaching the device to a large red balloon on a jumbo screen high overhead. the images on the phone and on the screen are perfectly in sync.
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so, real or fake? what do you think? no hacking here. the transmitter and receiver are random spare parts picked up from a used electronics store. but the video is playing for all to see. think moto, the company behind it, just leased the screen space and played the video back, like any other advertiser would. of course, playback is perfectly timed to correspond to what is being shown on the iphone screen. and why, might you ask? turns out, it is stealth campaign for the movie "limitless." that's a trailer for the movie that the hacker interrupts on the giant screen. coming up, a close encounter with a rat. >> i will say, it did seem like it might have been people playing a joke. >> and a giant lego ball on the loose. >> this is just in that genre of let's just do something really
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weird and videotape it and have fun with it. >> the gross and the whacky when we return to "caught on camera: viral videos, do you believe?" omnipotent of opportunity. you know how to mix business... with business. and you...rent from national. because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle. and go. you can even take a full-size or above. and still pay the mid-size price. i could get used to this. [ male announcer ] yes, you could business pro. yes, you could. go national. go like a pro.
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, everybody, i'm thomas roberts. here is what is happening. a powerful storm system that has already dumped snow in nevada, missouri and indiana could produce tornadoes in the mississippi valley come christmas day. by wednesday, parts of virginia and florida will be in the strike zone. last-minute shoppers are catching a break tonight. several big retailers like kmart, macy's and walmart staying open late. and we're keeping a close eye on the norad website, where santa's travels are being tracked right now. santa is making stops in europe. back to "caught on camera." welcome back to "caught on camera." i'm contessa brewer. a rat is loose in the new york city subway system. not just on the tracks, but in a
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train car. this next clip quickly went viral in january of 2011, and it's definitely creepy. but is it real? >> that rat does not mess around. it's not like a rat, on the leg, oh, no, a human, i will get off of you. that rat was like, i will go towards the face hole. >> a pretty horrifying, visceral thing when you see that. this video is the kind of thing that it's hard to resist passing around like oh my god, did you see this? >> but did that really just happen? >> i will say it might have been people playing a joke that had a rat. like let's let a rat loose on the subway. i did think there was some trained rat. i thought there would be a clicking noise in the back, and oh, there's a trainer. i can see him in the car. >> so, is this video for real or like some of our other videos, a trick? >> it was a subway rat. it wasn't somebody's house mouse. it wasn't a pet chinchilla. no, it was a dirty subway rat.
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>> jeff ford catches this hair-raising moment on camera while on his way home from work late one night. >> i was actually on the train sleeping myself. a lady screams oh my god, there is a rat, there's a rat on the train. i wake up and look around. i look down at my feet and there is a rat at my feet. >> he takes out the point-and-shoot camera and catches it climbing on to this unified sleeping man. >> i thought it was a crazy video because i've never seen a rat on the train period in my life, and i have lived here all my life. >> within days of ford posting the clip on facebook and youtube, it has tens of thousands of views, and for good ran. >> it's pretty fricking amazing. he caught a rat climbing on somebody on the new york subway. >> an experience ford won't forget any time soon, even if he wanted to. >> i have a hard time sleeping on the trains now. i really seriously do. i think about it. a rat crawling up on you? no. i don't want that to happen.
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in our next video, a giant ball of legos rolls down a san francisco street. but could this be green screen technology or some other hollywood-inspired trick? >> i love this video. this is just in that genre of let's just do something really weird and videotape it and have fun with it. >> oh, that's the kind of idea i've had all the time after i've had a couple beers or i'm joking around with my friends and these guys actually did it. >> or did they? well, yes. and not exactly. >> there is definitely a boulder that has legos on it rolling down the hill after these guys. >> that's right. it wasn't created by a computer or shot in front of a green screen. but it also wasn't just a group of friends joking around. >> it had viral video advertising campaign wafting off of it. >> that's exactly what it is, a viral video promoting what was promoting, in 2008, a new lego "indiana jones" video game from lucasarts.
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>> we wanted to find a way to broaden the audience. we tasked our agency to come up with some new ideas, something really different that would get people talking the next day. >> and what's more different than a giant lego boulder chasing someone dressed like indiana jones down a hill in the middle of a major american city? but still, with 5 million lego bricks, that's got to be a little heavy. >> really heavy. and they are sort of moving it like it was nothing. i was like 5 million legos? >> so what about that 5 million number flashing at the end? >> we created a very big ball of legos that was, at its core, was a big foam ball. >> a foam ball with an outer shell of about 4200 pieces of lego stuck to those familiar green panels. >> we used rubber cement and actually glued the little bricks to the plates and then the plates got glued to the
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styrofoam which made up the giant boulder. >> it was people coming in on the weekend from our office and from lucas and just sat around and ate pizza and built this huge ball. and threw it on the back of a flatbed truck. and a couple days later, took it to location. >> and on location, catching the scene on camera turns out to be kind of like a movie shoot. >> we actually shot it over and over again. we actually had a big moving truck with pads on it. >> the ball would kind of roll into the mattress and collide and stop. and we ended up doing that about four or five times down the rest of the length of the road. and then kind of cut those pieces together to make it look like one fluid roll. >> there is one part of the video where you see the road flattens out a bit. we actually had to push the ball because there wasn't enough momentum to get over the flat segment. so we were then pushing the boulder and took the people out in post. >> it is also suspicious that
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all those lego bricks stay in place for the whole bumpy trip. well, as it turns out, they don't. >> after the very first roll, pieces started falling off everywhere. >> there were some things flapping off at different times. in the post production process, we kind of cleaned up the flapping panels to make it look like a clean ball. >> this combination of real and fake certainly works. the video's been viewed more than 6 million times. >> i think most people looked at it and just said, that's awesome. and they didn't care if it was fake or real. you know, they just thought it was funny. >> in the end, the fact that they built this big thing and took it out and rolled it down the hill and some guy ran in front of it reenacting an indiana jones movie is just hilarious. coming up, drinking and mowing don't mix. >> i've been drinking all day. hang on just a second. >> what are you doing? >> i got to pee. >> no matter how much you've had to drink, are you really going to do that? >> outrageous, yes.
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but could it be real? >> you kinda go like, this can't be real. but it could be because this is clearly a police officer dash cam. >> digging into this dash cam video when we return to "caught on camera: viral videos, do you believe?" [ male announcer ] rocky had no idea why dawn was gone for so long...
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compared to other leading brands, it has 50% more animal protein. ...to help keep rocky's body as strong as a love that never fades... if he ever lets her leave again. iams. keep love strong. our next viral video hit the internet in 2006 and immediately had people wondering, is it real or is it fake? >> i'm going to stop a lawn mower, white male. >> the action is caught on a police dash cam. >> what is this guy doing? >> you kind of go like, this can't be real. >> what's your name? >> steve. >> but then you're like, but it could be because this is clearly a police officer's dash cam. the guy gets out, dressed to the nines as a cop. >> it certainly has a lot of
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elements that lend it credibility. >> how long you been riding a lawn mower? >> about two weeks. my truck broke. >> two weeks? >> yeah. >> you got a license on you, steve? >> the situation quickly gets, well, uncomfortable. >> what are you doing? >> i got to pee. >> sir, step off the lawn mower. sir, step off the lawnmower. >> hang on. >> step off the lawn mower. >> just give me a second. >> sir, you better step off that lawn mower. you're about to get sprayed. i'm serious. i'm serious. >> i got to go. i got to go. ahhh! >> all sorts of absurd action is caught on camera these days. and this dash cam video certainly looks convincing, but is it real? >> you're not supposed to be riding a lawn mower on a highway. what are you doing? >> well, it's definitely not real. >> comedian mark ryan is steve, the lawnmower guy. >> my wife said if i didn't get her another beer, she was going
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to stab me in the face. >> to me, it's more like bringing to life comedy i've been doing for years in another format on the stage. >> i grew up with a buddy named steve who was just loud and raising hell all the time. won't it be fun to hear him every once in a while? all right, here's what you're going do. >> in 2006, mark is doing stand-up, but wants to reach a larger audience. that's where steve comes in. >> it was a way to get attention, just in general, but it was also, you know, intended kind of as a commercial. to have him say, that was really funny. who is this guy? i want to learn more. >> i've been drinking all day. hang on just a second. >> mark posts the steve video with this description. "my buddy, steve, is a moron. i often tell his stories in my show. this is one of my favorites. through a friend on the force, i got one of steve's arrest videos." >> to randomly be able to grab a new fan through the internet is really exciting, because if the internet didn't exist, i would
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be old school like a politician, town to town, shaking hands, hey, here's who i am. i'm funny. trust me. believe in me. but now, the internet does that. >> just because he wants to attract new fans doesn't mean he wants to make it easy for them to figure out who steve really is. >> i think it's kind of -- it's the modern day gag. it's the modern day, you know, crank call. >> i got to pee. >> sir, step off the lawn mower. >> hang on. >> sir! >> i was hoping that they would think it was real. that was my intent. was to -- let's make this as believable as possible from top to bottom. >> and that dash cam does seem authentic. >> instantly you're like, okay, the guy must know a cop. you know what i mean? >> bingo. the officer in the video is none other than mark's brother-in-law, a real-life cop in louisiana. >> he is so believable as the cop, especially because he's calm, you know? that's how cops are. >> you're not supposed to be riding a lawn mower on the
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highway. what are you doing? >> uh --- i'm just going to the store right down here. my truck is broke. i mean, my wife said if i didn't get her another beer, she was going to stab me in the face. >> well, first of all, there's not a store down there. second of all, you don't need to be drinking. and then you're littering on top of that. >> when he is talking to the guy, he is probably just in cop mode. i would talk to you just as i was pulling you over as a regular cop. >> what's your name? >> steve. >> where do you live at, steve? >> except i think we would have gotten way more tazing, as it were, with the whole, "i'm going to pull my junk out and take a leak." i think that would have been a quick one-two for the tazing. >> i got to go. ahh! ahhh! >> i mean, you really going to get up and try and take a leak? go to the bathroom in front of a
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police officer? i mean, no matter how much you've had to drink, are you really gonna do that? i don't know. >> the officer isn't all that's real. the video is shot with the actual dash cam in the brother-in-law's very real police car. he has to get the video processed at the station before giving it to mark. >> when he took at video in, initially the very first one, you know his coworkers immediately were like, when did that happen? when did this -- tell us the story. and so that was like the first sign that oh, man, this is really -- this could be good, you know? >> luckily, mark's brother-in-law doesn't get in trouble, and steve is a success. >> something that's kind of funny and well produced can be hugely viral on the web. >> mark follows the first video with four more, including one posted in 2010, where steve gives up his lawn mower for a scissor lift. >> steve? come on down. >> come and get me. how about that.
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>> i'll tell you what, steve, we can do there the easy way or we can do it the hard way. >> i don't think the intent was to make a bunch of steve videos, as much as to find something that people would gravitate to, something that people would want to watch. >> you call 911? >> i called, yeah. >> it doesn't matter if they think it's real or fake. it seems people want to watch steve. >> sir, pull that lift to the side of the road. stop, now. >> the last one i put up did a million views in 20 days, which is quicker than any of the other videos i've put on there. >> maybe i'll come down, maybe i won't. maybe i'll come down. maybe i won't. >> so what's next for steve? >> i'm just going to say it involves a helicopter. that's all i'm going to say. we're going big. >> i know my rights! coming up, from the ridiculous to the just plain freaky. >> so i'm going to sync them up to the monitor. then --
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>> seeing 3-d without those pesky glasses. >> this gets weird very quickly. >> it's one of these ridiculous things that could just be true. >> could this be cutting-edge technology? or is it one giant rouse? >> i could even touch it. >> when we return, to "caught on camera: viral videos, do you believe?" i'm going to dream about that tiramisu. what a night, huh? but, um, can the test drive be over now? head back to the dealership? [ male announcer ] it's practically yours. but we still need your signature. volkswagen sign then drive is back. and it's never been easier to get a passat. that's the power of german engineering. get $0 down, $0 due at signing, $0 deposit, and $0 first month's payment on any new volkswagen. visit vwdealer.com today. i have a cold, and i took nyquil, but i'm still "stubbed" up. [ male announcer ] truth is, nyquil doesn't unstuff your nose.
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what? [ male announcer ] it doesn't have a decongestant. no way. [ male announcer ] sorry. alka-seltzer plus fights your worst cold symptoms plus has a fast acting decongestant to relieve your stuffy nose. [ sighs ] thanks! [ male announcer ] you're welcome. that's the cold truth! [ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus. ♪ oh what a relief it is! ♪ [ male announcer ] to learn more about the cold truth and save $1 visit alka-seltzer on facebook. in that time there've been some good days. and some difficult ones.
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but, through it all, we've persevered, supporting some of the biggest ideas in modern history. so why should our anniversary matter to you? because for 200 years, we've been helping ideas move from ambition to achievement. and the next great idea could be yours. ♪
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in early 2011, this video is uploaded to youtube. >> hello. so i'm going to talk to you about a very new device that creates 3-d without the glasses. >> the man in the video explains that someone named jonathan has found a way of seeing 3-d on a normal television screen without the pesky glasses. >> so this is one of those viral videos that kind of sneaks up on
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you where you're like why, why is this a viral video? >> i'm going to do a demonstration. >> but this gets weird very quickly. >> i'm going to sync the eyelid to the monitor. and then look. >> his eyes start flapping rapidly, completely out of his control. and it looks like the most uncomfortable thing to have essentially a device take control of your blinking. >> the idea is to mimic special glasses that block one eye and then the other in rapid succession, allowing you to see an image in 3-d on some newer television sets. >> can we enjoy the show? >> but how can that be comfortable or real? >> it's one of these ridiculous things that could just be true, like it could just be this guy is a crazy guy who thinks this is an amazing technology. >> reporter: the video is even featured on tech sites. >> 3-d technology is out there.
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it hasn't been well received. everybody is trying to come up with a way to do 3-d without the glasses. >> first off, if this was a technology, that man would be either blind or not able to taste oranges. >> what is great about it is that you have nothing to -- to -- in front of you. you have no glasses. so you can really enjoy the show. >> it's so much better than glasses, because nothing is in front of your face. your eyes feel like they're about to explode, but nothing is in front of your face. it's such a better experience. >> so is this the next big thing? or the next big fake? >> francois has not blinking like that. >> luis bloomingfeld is the man responsible for this strange creation. >> we need to make something that really represents our -- what we are able to do. like 3-d.
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can do a good competition, visual effects composition. >> they make the video to show what they can do. jonathan posts the name of louis's company. and the blinking is made possible through the magic of 3-d graphics. >> we create some points over his face. we took some pictures of his face around him. so if with those pictures and the points, we create a 3-d face of francois. >> louis and his team then take a real blink and repeat it over and over again on the image. >> after that we put the face become on him. the effect actually it's kind of simple to do it. >> and those devices on his temples? computer chips with l.e.d. lights. >> and the remote were for the conditioner and the beep that you listen. it's from the air condition behind him. it just turned on.
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>> it might have been a fabrication, but it certainly fooled a lot of people. >> this was people sending mail trying to invest, trying to buy, trying to use it, trying to see how they could spend to be the first one to have it. we got over 11,000 comments on our page. >> this clip has more than 5 million views on youtube alone. >> you see it and you want to believe it. even if you kind of know it's fake, you kind of want to believe it's real and send it around. it's kind of delightful to think that this guy exists and that that technology exists, and that he is so excited about this weird invention that he has created. >> and finally, from the headache-inducing to the logic defying. >> when a first cog starts rolling, it looks like a cg cog. it doesn't even look like the real thing.
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>> here comes. tires rolling uphill. that was where this viral video lost me. the tires rolling uphill. i was like nah, i can't do it. the tires should not be able to go up just by nudging each other. >> this video first hits the air in 2003. as a traditional television ad for honda in the uk. but it quickly goes viral around the world. >> the different parts of the car are rolling or flipping and hitting the next thing and triggering the windshield wipers or triggering the muffler to roll. and eventually it ends with unlocking the full car coming down a ramp. and that's the product they're selling. >> but did this happen for real? or is this another case of
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computer-generated effects? this one may surprise you. amazingly, this whole sequence actually happened, even the tires going uphill. >> people have asked about how the tires go up the slope. and it's incredibly simple. the tire is here, and there is a weight here. as soon as the motion, the weight pushes it forward, even though it's up a slope. >> rob steiner with advertising agency wieden and kennedy was there when it all came together. >> my personal favorite was the wind screen wipers. they look quite messy. one of our jobs in the commercial was to talk about product specifications. and one of the product specifications of this particular honda accord was that it had rain sensitive wind screen wipers. >> and all of the sudden it becomes this weird creepy sci-fi
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creature. you feel bad for the poor windshield wipers that are emboweled. >> the cog actually set the tires in motion. but did it all happen in one continuous shot? well, almost. >> let me say that the whole sequence actually worked. a two-minute sequence works. when we came down to the shoot days, we made a damage limitation decision. we decided just so we had a better chance of succeeding to shoot it in two 60-second segments, and in post production we would join in the middle. it was half a second's worth of cgi on the exhaust books. between the two 60-second sequences. but you can't see it.

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